


the hegemon's lament

by heavensblessing



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anal Sex, Captivity, Clothed Sex, M/M, Royalty, Sexual Slavery, Unaroused Victim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:22:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24909103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavensblessing/pseuds/heavensblessing
Summary: My strength plucked up the hills,My might shadowed the worldThere were many things that Xiang Daiyan was promised to turn his eyes from the latest kingdom he has conquered, and he received none of them. And to the victor go the spoils, as is his due, and he will consider nothing less.Even if the spoils, the last prince of the kingdom, happens to be a childhood friend.
Relationships: Conquering Warlord/Conquered Virgin Prince
Comments: 8
Kudos: 78
Collections: Nonconathon 2020





	the hegemon's lament

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freosan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freosan/gifts).



One empire, nineteen kingdoms. Nineteen kingdoms, one empire. The world has changed so irrevocably in only sixteen years, and as much as he might wish it, Xiang Daiyan cannot turn back time, to the simpler days of warring kingdoms before the First Empress had shown them all what was possible with an unyielding will and the might of arms, even if her lastborn daughter and her niece had proven unable to hold onto what she had forged. One empire, nineteen kingdoms: nineteen kingdoms, one empire, and the Hegemon-King over all the West will be satisfied with no less, even if he occasionally regrets the necessity of his chosen path.

"There were many things I was promised, princeling." Xiang Daiyan says, and bites down the name that comes first to mind, the name he had once called the man kneeling before him with his slender wrists bound behind his back and his hair falling loose around his face instead of tied back as was proper, graceful and beautiful even in captivity, the prize and jewel of his dead mother's kingdom. From the days when they had been children together, and friends, growing up in the same house, when he had been fostered by a dead woman in memory of another dead woman, her dearest friend. A name which he has no right to call him now or ever again, and instead he thinks of him by his courtesy name, lest his personal name fall from his lips instead. "To turn my eyes from your mother's kingdom and your mother's rule and none of them was I given."

An Tianyou - beautiful and treasured as white jade, slim and upright as a steel lily - stares at him stonily, dark-moon eyes narrowed with cold anger and grief. When they had been children together, so long ago, he had been able to read his fine-boned features as easily as Tianyou could read the future, even in those days, but now his expressions are firmly closed. Their paths long ago diverged, even before he had left his mother's house, and he knows he doesn't know the man Tianyou has become, the untouchable oracle who hears the voices of the gods, had been married to the heavens instead of to any mortal man. Had his mother and sisters attempted to heed his prophecies - or had Daiyan's conquest been ordained by the heavens? "And so you sought to claim it yourself."

Tianyou's voice is soft and precise, careful with the language that he uses, and while he doesn't raise his voice, gentle as ever, his words hit with the force of a slap, and a lesser man would have flinched from the rebuke. Daiyan, however, is no lesser man, even as the quiet rage of heaven's chosen oracle scorches his ears. Of course his childhood friend hates him now: no matter how gentle his voice, Daiyan knows the truth, especially as he killed his mother, his sisters, his entire family. His line, his office, his kingdom, dies with him, and Tianyou surely knows that his life will only last as long as Daiyan wishes it. This is one of the things that he wishes were different: this is one of the things, however few, that he regrets. An Lihua had been the best mother that he could have asked for, gentle and fierce all in one slender woman, and he wishes she had lain down her arms and surrendered. He wishes. He wishes. He wishes-

No, he doesn't wish. Not truly. He made his choices, in the name of his ambitions, and An Lihua had made hers, and there's nothing to be done but walk this path. Even if the man he'd loved when he was young, walking beneath his window in the moonlight, loved and put his feelings aside, knowing then that he could never have him, hates him forever because of it, it doesn't matter. He would make the same choices again, even knowing what he does now: in the name of his ambition, he would commit any wrong, any sin, and An Lihua's kingdom, as well as her son, are his. It is not the way that he might have wanted An Tianyou, a lifetime ago - a lifetime ago, before he became a conqueror, before he forgot how to be tender, when other people's desires still mattered besides his own - but it is the way that he can have him, now.

"I did," Daiyan says, because there is nothing else he can say but affirmation. Nowhere to go but forward, nothing to do but to claim him and his kingdom with it. Maybe this would never have happened, maybe he would never have set himself on the road to becoming a conqueror, if everything had been different, if he had married An Tianyou instead all those years ago, when he'd only just become an adult, when he'd just received his courtesy name, but that would never have been even a distant possibility in any circle of this world. Not when Tianyou, alone among his siblings, had been born with the oracle's gift and had been promised to the gods instead. "And your mother's kingdom is now mine, as are you."

Tianyou's spine, already straight and severe, somehow straightens even more. "You wouldn't _dare_ -"

Roughly, he grasps Tianyou's long, loose hair in his grasp and pulls, warningly. "I would," he says. "Do you not remember who I am?"

The oracle-prince is silent, eyes fixed for a moment on the unseen, and Daiyan waits for him to come back to himself. Waits for the awareness, and the anger, to filter back into those lovely eyes. "You know who I am," he says, sternly, in response to Tianyou's silence. "You know what I am capable of. I killed my foster mother because she would not surrender to me and I care nothing for _your_ marriage to the gods. Your kingdom is mine, and you, _last of your line,_ will be mine."

"And if I refuse?" Tianyou says, his voice calm. Clearly expecting death for his refusal - but no, it would not be so easy.

"Then I'll kill your servants." Daiyan says, and watches dark eyes widen. "And their children. And drag you to my bed anyway by your hair. You have no choice in this, besides whether your handmaidens and their families live. Knowing this, will you still refuse?"

Silence, just as he thought. "Well, I misspoke. You have one choice." he adds, a long moment later and watches slender fingers twitch. Anyone else's fists would have balled up by now, long before now, and he admires Tianyou's control, as beautiful as he himself is. "You can choose either of these, but only one. Choose either whether I alone will have you, or whether it will be in private - or if the eyes of your people as well as heaven will be on it." 

Daiyan, despite his threats, has no intention of sharing An Tianyou, not even with his most trusted officers, and only makes the threat to see the other man's reaction, to see which he would choose. He was not the type to share his concubines, even the common-born ones, and An Tianyou is the prize of his mother's kingdom, if not beyond. He was always jealous, even when they were children, not wanting to share Tianyou with any other friends, but does Tianyou remember that? It has been a lifetime, after all, sixteen years, and neither of them are the children that they were, once. Watches the play of subdued emotion in dark eyes, the flicker of emotions that break through icy calm, before Tianyou finally speaks.

"Private," he says, voice soft, and there is no indication on his face as he lowers his eyes whether he remembers Daiyan's jealous streak or whether his own desire for privacy wins out, even if it means possibly being passed around by Daiyan and his men. Either way, it doesn't matter, and Tianyou has made his choice.

After a moment, Daiyan smiles, and it's not a nice smile. "As you wish."

~~~

As the conqueror of the kingdom, and as Hegemon-King of the West, it would have been within Daiyan's right to have taken the rooms that had once belonged to An Lihua. He does not: he takes her palace, and he takes the second-best quarters within that palace, for as long as he intends to stay there, but he has the doors of Lihua's rooms firmly shut and barred after they are cleaned for the last time, makes the correct offerings to ensure that her spirit doesn't haunt him. And even if he _hadn't_ had respect enough for her to leave her rooms and especially her bed alone, he knew perfectly well that if he'd raped her son in her bed that she _would_ have haunted him, screaming in rage and trying to tear his eyes out _(and he would have deserved every moment of that fate)_.

So, instead, he takes the second-best quarters and doesn't have Tianyou right away, as much as he would have liked to. Instead, he lets the oracle-prince have the next turn of the moon to mourn his family, and make the offerings that he needs to, and lets himself savor his hunger. He savors his hunger until the next dark of the moon, when he orders his servants to have Tianyou bathed, _properly_ dressed for his new station (in something other than his oracle robes, as beautiful as they are) and brought to him. Not that he _expects_ the man to be any more receptive after a moon of waiting, but that's fine. 

The oracle is brought to his bedroom dressed in the clinging robes of a concubine, though without the carefully-applied cosmetics of a concubine, and with his wrists bound behind his back, lush, unsmiling mouth set and his face icily calm. Kneels before Daiyan, so prettily, but his head unbowed and unyielding, back absolutely straight, and his dark-moon eyes absolutely opaque, and says nothing, though Daiyan watches his gaze trail around the bedroom _(which almost certainly had belonged to one of his sisters: Daiyan feared the posthumous wrath of An Lihua, but his fear does not extend to her daughters),_ presumably looking for anyone else, likely remembering Daiyan's threat. 

There's any number of things that could be said, regrets and broken promises hanging between them thick as fog off the river and Daiyan considers, for a moment, saying any of them, but words don't matter between them anymore, if they ever did in the first place. In the end, he says only one thing, as he yanks Tianyou to his feet and drags him towards the bed - the man doesn't resist, not really, but doesn't cooperate, either. "You are _my_ concubine now," he says, and watches Tianyou's eyes chill even more, cold like the killing-bitter frosts in the worst winters on the distant, barbarian steppe. "Act like it." 

_(Of course he hadn't been taught, hadn't been trained, but even the oracle had been something other than an oracle, once. Would have known or heard things, especially as a teenage boy, and they'd been teenage boys together, a lifetime ago. Perhaps he knew the most central expectation of a concubine, even beyond being beautiful or graceful or pleasing: that if they were not enjoying themself, even if they were completely unwilling, that their duty was to pretend the pleasure that they were not feeling, no matter what.)_

Throws him onto the raised platform of his bed on his back, so that he's lying on his bound arms. Retrieves a vial of oil - just one, he'll be more careful the next time - and gets into bed with Tianyou, watching the other man's expressionless face. Chill serenity, even now, and Daiyan's almost curious to see how long he'll manage to keep that up, especially while he's having him. The other man doesn't resist, too aware of the potential consequences for his conquered people and his own responsibilities to them, as the last surviving member of their royal line- but nor does he cooperate- when he undoes his sash and opens his robes to reveal his willow-slender body, pushes up the skirts of his robes and crumples them into a ball somewhere in the vicinity of his upper body, mostly baring him to his gaze: even more lovely than he remembers from their days as adolescents together, grown into the jewel of his mother's kingdom. Still. So still. 

Tianyou doesn't resist when he shoves his legs apart with his knees, either, doesn't try to close his legs, and kneels between his thighs, forces them open as far as they will go. Daiyan will have time to more leisurely explore that body later, willowy but strong, white-jade skin pale and untouched before him, to touch as he likes and feel him tremble beneath his fingers, minute and carefully controlled unless he learns how to take him apart. Not that Tianyou himself knows what would, either, if he's even still capable of pleasure and desire, however forced it will be at Daiyan's hands. If even that is possible. But what he wants now is simply to sate at least some of his pent-up years of longing and hunger the only way he can anymore _(the only way left to him)._ To claim his prize and complete his conquest. 

It's surprisingly easy to open the oil vial and the scent of lavender fills the room. Pours cool oil onto the other man's _(tight, untouched)_ hole just before Daiyan opens his own robes and pours oil into his own palm, slicks himself with quick strokes of his fingers. Doesn't really give Tianyou any time to think or decide he wants to struggle, now, after all: shifts over him, holds him down with one palm on his right shoulder, and _shoves_ into him. Gods, he's _tight,_ tense with resistance, almost too tight, and Daiyan isn't gentle, forces himself into him a little at a time, makes him yield with every thrust, makes him open for him and take him all. He doesn't fight back, otherwise, doesn't struggle, but his resistance is clear, and pushing into him is difficult, at first, but it doesn't _stop_ him, can't stop him, _won't_ stop him. The _noise_ Tianyou makes, breathy and broken, is unquestionably pained, unable to soften it or modulate it into something that could be pretended to be pleasure. 

A consort might have known how to fake pleasure for their spouse: a concubine certainly would have. But despite how Daiyan has dressed him up in clinging silks and forced him into his bed, despite how yielding-tight his body is around his cock, _despite how well_ he takes to being fucked in all ways but actually enjoying himself, An Tianyou is no consort, no concubine, but an oracle, an untouched bride for heaven, not meant for earthly things. Not meant to be touched, not meant to be taken. 

But not meant for earthly things or not, earthly things are what he has been given. Daiyan does not stroke his hair, does not offer him any semblance of gentleness, does not offer him the veneer of a lie, does not offer him that mockery. _H_ e doesn't know Tianyou anymore, not like he had when he was young, but he remembers that the clear-eyed oracle had not liked comforting lies, and so he doesn't. So he takes him roughly, doesn't stop when he buries himself all the way inside him, keeps moving. Enjoys the heat of his body, the way he yields, the little gasps of pain and the little flickers of it across fine-boned features, the tension in his body and the way that his slender legs tremble.

What had Daiyan dreamed of, once, in the days when he'd been young and dreamed only simple dreams, of light and gentleness and marrying a boy who could not be his? Not this. Never this. He can't remember what he'd dreamed about, in the hours before dawn, but it has nothing to do with how he has An Tianyou in his bed now, with his robes undone and pushed up to bare slender, strong legs and slim, lean thighs. Entirely nothing to do with how the oracle tries to act like he's enjoying himself, like there's any pleasure at all in this for him, lifts his hips to meet Daiyan's thrusts and gasps, breathily, even as he turns his face to not look at him, to stare at the far wall and veil his face behind a curtain of long black hair, to look at anything and absolutely anything else, even nothing at all. 

"You are a poor actor," Daiyan says, reproachfully, though the reproach has no force behind it. 

"Did you expect any different?" Tianyou's soft-voiced reply, barely more than exhaled breath that breaks into a pained grasp at a particularly vicious thrust, surprises him, though perhaps it shouldn't have. 

Daiyan doesn't answer: there's no need to answer, not when the answer is obvious. Instead grasps a handful of long black hair in his hand, silken strands slipping through his fingers, and viciously yanks, and Tianyou gasps, small, struck, pained. A lesser man would have sobbed by now, would have wept, but even like this, torn open and vulnerable, Tianyou refuses to weep. Doesn't know what he's trying to do: trying to make an unflappable, composed man cry, or what? Trying to make him react, trying to make him do something, _anything_? He doesn't know what he wants, or what he's trying to do. Just keeps moving in him, rough and relentless, without even a moment's mercy, again and again and again, sets a harsh, brutal pace, takes everything that Tianyou doesn't want to give him but will give him nonetheless. 

_(it's not the wedding night that a boy once dreamed of, in simpler times, in simpler days, a lifetime ago and more, but a mockery of it, but the mockery is all he'll ever have-)_

He takes his pleasure harsh and cruel, his grip bruising-tight on narrow hips, and comes, spilling himself inside Tianyou's tight body. Groans, low, in his ear. and doesn't withdraw until he goes soft, enjoying the warmth of his body around him. Afterwards, he doesn't let the oracle up - Daiyan easily _could_ , have let him put his clothing back in order and return to his own rooms, if he so wished, as he had done with other concubines in the past. Instead, he makes Tianyou stay - to get used to his new station in life, as concubine and to bend his prophecies to his cause, and to warm his cold bed on this winter night. Drifts off, vaguely, with the other man still pinned beneath his weight. 

_(it's cruel, but he does not regret his cruelty. he does not regret any of it. what he regrets is something so long gone that there is no getting it back-)_

Without thinking, he murmurs a name that he had no right to call him, now or ever again. "Lian," he murmurs, and the soft, _angry_ noise that the oracle makes, small, struck, but unmistakably angry, isn't quite what he'd wanted from him, either, not really, but it's more than the passive silence. The most he'll ever have, ever again. 

Tianyou looks at him, his eyes cold as frost. "You haven't the _right_ to call me that, anymore," he says, expression closing up like a fan snapped shut. 

_Not now, and never again._

And he will have to be content with that - that, and an empire, will have to be enough. 


End file.
